The author(s)

Washington, DC, January 12th, 2020 - New public opinion data from ABC News and Ipsos shows that the American public continues to disapprove of President Trump’s handing of the situation with Iran and feel it has made the country less safe, even after both sides appear to have stepped back from the conflict.

In this poll, conducted Friday-Saturday, January 10th and 11th, we find that 56% of Americans disapprove of how President Trump is handing the situation with Iran and 52% believe the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soliemani made the United States less safe. These numbers are not significantly different from the findings of a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted Monday-Tuesday, January 6th and 7th, which found 53% of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s handing of Iran and a separate USA Today/Ipsos survey, also conducted Monday-Tuesday, which found that 55% believe that the killing made the U.S. less safe. This suggests that despite Iran appearing to deescalate after a rocket strike on U.S. bases in Iraq caused no fatalities, this has not been a “win” for the President, nor has the American public’s view on the crisis softened.

About the Study

This ABC News/Ipsos Poll was conducted January 10 to 11 by Ipsos Public Affairs KnowledgePanel® – a division of Ipsos. This poll is based on a nationally-representative probability sample of 525 general population adults age 18 or older.

The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, which is the largest and most well-established online panel that is representative of the adult US population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the US. Households are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in these households are invited to join and participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those potential panel members who do not already have internet access, Ipsos provides a tablet and internet connection at no cost to the panel member. Those who join the panel and who are selected to participate in a survey are sent a unique password-protected log-in used to complete surveys online. As a result of our recruitment and sampling methods, samples from KnowledgePanel cover all households regardless of their phone or internet status and provide fully representative online samples to the research community.

The study was conducted in both English and Spanish. The data were weighted to adjust for gender by age, race, education, Census region, metropolitan status, household income, and party identification. The demographic benchmarks came from the 2019 March supplement of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS). Party ID benchmarks are from recent ABC News/Washington Post telephone polls. The weighting categories were as follows:

The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. The margin of sampling error takes into account the design effect, which was 1.26. The margin of sampling error is higher and varies for results based on sub-samples. In our reporting of the findings, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given table column may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. In questions that permit multiple responses, columns may total substantially more than 100%, depending on the number of different responses offered by each respondent.

About Ipsos

Ipsos is the world’s third largest market research company, present in 90 markets and employing more than 18,000 people.

Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. We serve more than 5000 clients across the world with 75 business solutions.

Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos is listed on the Euronext Paris since July 1st, 1999. The company is part of the SBF 120 and the Mid-60 index and is eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (SRD).